Hail the new stars aiming for the Moon
India was over the moon about landing on the Moon. And it was also the moment when a few hundred avowedly nerdy looking scientists at the mission control centre at Sriharikota became the darlings of over a billion proud Indians around the world.
For once these Indians' adulation was not directed at a galaxy of cinema or sports superstars with their expensively maintained, sleek faces and bodies but at rows of exceedingly ordinary looking men and women, made extraordinary by the dint of their achievement: creating a totally indigenous mooncraft (Chandrayaan) that made a perfect landing on the Moon's south pole, a feat that no other nation has pulled off.
Geek is good, to misquote Wall Street's Gordon Gekko.
India has been gradually getting used to its nerdy international image, immortalised in US cinema and cartoons, and realistically represented by the Sundar Pichais and Satya Nadellas of the US-centred tech world. Scientists, however, have lagged behind somewhat in the geeky glamour stakes, although space is one sector that should have comparable lure as humans down the ages have always been fascinated by the mysteries of the universe.
Although placing a silver-locked, veena-playing rocket scientist in Rashtrapati Bhavan back in 2002 did bring that profession into the national limelight, with no high profile 'names' and million dollar salaries to focus on thereafter, a stellar event was needed to draw public attention back to this low-key cohort.
